Men At Work’s “Land Down Under”.
What I heard:
“Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
He just smiled and gave me a bit of my sandwich”
I really liked that verse for its imagery and jokiness. Then I found out that it was actually “vegetime sandwich”, which seemed so obvious and stupid.
I heard “bathroom on the right” ie he was giving directions to someone that needs to pee. Of course, this is an example of a song that got better when I found the real lyrics.
songs that got worse :
I always thought that Queen sang :
“goodbye eyerybody, I’ve got to go,
gotta leave you all behind and fade away”
The consesnsus of lyrics sites is that he actually has to “face the truth.” I prefer mine. What truth does he have to face, exactly? Face the music, perhaps, face the truth, no.
A case of misunderstood lyrics, rather than misheard. My skister likes The Kinks and played Lola a lot. She thought it was about a young man being seduced by an older woman. She was not happy when I explained what it’s really about.
In Gold Dust Woman, by Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nick sings: Rulers make bad lovers. As a kid, however, I heard that line as: True loves make bad lovers. I guess I got cynical young. 
It doesn’t ruin the song for me, but I still like my version better.
I read the thread title, and this is EXACTLY what I was going to post! I can’t believe that it was the first friggin’ thing that you wrote. I was going to include the “much more romantic” comment as well. “Take me back to the stars” is so much better because it alludes to a relationship going stale over time, and someone wanting to bring it back to the time when it was magical and cosmic. I always imagined a new couple lying in a field somewhere gazing at the stars. Several years later, they’re married, constantly fighting, with kids screaming in the background, and are just sick of each other. That’s when they remember their time under the stars. And then I read the lyrics and the song just becomes so blah!
Into the Night, Benny Mardone.
“She’s just sixteen years old, leave her alone, they said…”
Ew.
I heard it just the same. The image of a big pissed off Belgian going over to an annoying Aussie and just feeding him some of his own food to shut him up was definately better than the image of a friendly Belgian making a vegimite sandwich for the Aussie just to be nice.
Much of Bjorks lyrics though not bad are rather more ‘R’ rated than you might expect when you get to understand them. Felt a bit bad buying an album of hers for my dad when I finally realised how much oral sex refferences were in the songs.
The aria O Mio Babbino Caro. It’s from the opera Gianni Schicchi, by Puccini. You’ve heard it, even if you’re not a classical/opera lover, because it’s been used in tons of movies and commercials.
The lyrics (swiped from the web) are
The Porta Rossa is a marketplace in Florence. The Ponte Vecchio is a bridge lined with jewelry shops, also in Florence, and spans the Arno River. Just in case you were wondering.
It’s still a stunningly beautiful piece of music, but as poetry – well, it sucks. Maybe it comes off better in Italian.
Prison Sex by Tool. It was a much better song when I didn’t know that it was actually about it.
Ditto, the imagery is just to graphic for me to curl my lip and shout “this rawks, dude!” to anymore.
Much of Tori Amos’ music is the same. What seems like beautiful bubbly catchy pop songs are really horribly depressing once you read the lyrics.
And from the opposite spectrum, Creed sound like great angsty, rebellious rock on the surface. But upon reading all of the “god, faith, hope, joy, isn’t childbirth wonderful” celebration, all of the edginess and appeal disappeared for me.
I seek some middleground between total despair and pure cleanliness in my music. No extremes please.
Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear the Reaper.
Actual Lyircs (courtesy of some lyrics fansite):
But for some reason I though they were singing “come on, Mary,”…as in Mary. Mother of Jesus. I also thought the chorus was “40,000 men win every day,”…as in win their way into heaven; die, but rise again.
Given those two misunderstandings, I built the song up in my head to be about Jesus reappearing to Mary outside the Sepulcher after three days had passed and the stone had been rolled aside (“The door was open and the wind appeared…”).
I wasn’t religious, but I thought it was pretty cool to have a whole rock song about that sort of obscure but particularly poignant moment from Christian theology: the Mother seeing her dead Son, knowing He is risen again, but still lost to her as a child…but then Jesus offers His hand and says “you can fly too”: redemption!
Then I found out it was just teen Goth nihilisim and suicide-glamorization.
Sailboat
Speaking of Coldplay, I was rather disappointed when I really listened to Speed of Sound’s lyrics.
I mean, if birds could fly at the speed of sound … they’d be friggin deadly!
and it needs more cowbell
Is Prison Sex actually about something worse than prison sex? Because I thought it was about prison sex and it seemed pretty dark just being about that.
It’s also got something to do with the cycle of child molestation, as referenced in the line “do unto others what has been done to you.”
Moderator interrupts with some exasperation:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
PLEASE, please, please, do NOT quote the entire lyrics of a song. This is a violation of our rules, both of the Message Board and the Forum. See [url=“http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=343601”]Forum Rules[/ulr] and note Post #2.
If you’ve found another website that (presumably) has permission to post the lyrics, then provide a link.
OK?
[sub]I’m getting tired of having to read every bleedin’ music thread to find people abusing the copyhright rules.[/sub]
Spirit of America - The Beach Boys
I should have guessed this was about a car. I always liked it because I thought it had a catchy sound and described the deep, spiritual roots of America. Well, after I listened more closely (which must have been dozens of times later), I thought to myself, “Wow, they’re singing about a stupid rocket car.” Now, this may not be bad if I had known from the beginning, but it seems so trivial after my original presumption.
I can no longer listen to this song.
“Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen. When I first heard it, I was about 8 or 9 and I was simply fascinated by the liquid harmonies. Didn’t much care what they were singing, really. I didn’t even recognize the title when later I bought the CD for “Jazz.”
Would it make you feel better to know that you’re still misunderstanding it?
The song is about an Australian guy who is traveling all over the world, looking for exotic places and people, and much to his dismay, he keeps meeting other Australians all over the place.
He thinks he’s talking to an authentic Belgian he-man baker, and it turns out that the Belgian guy is really Australian. Why else would he have Vegemite? So our narrator went looking for something different, and got handed the same old Vegemite sandwich.
When he’s in a “den in Bombay,” he mentions to the Indian proprietor that he’s from the “land of plenty.” And it turns out the Indian guy is really an Australian. So instead of being in this really exotic place, he’s just hanging out with yet another Australian.
I’m not sure what the song is commenting on. Maybe that Australians travel a lot? But I rather like it. I think we all know the feeling of looking for something different, and just finding the same old stuff.
Sorry. Thought that opera lyrics were public domain and therefore exempt. My bad.
Song I only heard a few times, years ago. Don’t know who the singer is, or even the title for sure so we’re safe from me looking up all the lyrics. 
Anyway, I was going through a bad spell in life. Various upsets/arguments/relationships breaking up. And I heard this song on the radio that just seemed to fit my mood. Didn’t catch all the words, but the constant mention of a ‘house of stone and lies’ was just perfect. Yup, my house was cold as stone and full of lies, all right.
And then one day it came on the radio when I was actually paying attention. Oh. “House of stone and LIGHT” Apparently about some sort of native-american-ish religious ecstasy/finding your true path.
My bitter song was actually hopeful and uplifting.
Nevermind. <sigh>